Privacy-Sensitive Germans Not Biting Into Apple’s iBeacon — Yet

New in-store tracking technologies that give retailers data about the shopping habits of their customers is slowly making its way into brick-and-mortar stores around the world. But the uptake is happening slowly in Germany, a country especially sensitive to privacy rights.

That makes for a tough market for new products like Cupertino-based Apple’ Inc.’s iBeacon. The technology uses a version of Bluetooth, a form of wireless close-range communication, that senses nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as smartphones carried by shoppers in a store.

For iBeacons to work with a retailer’s system, however, customers have to install applications on their phones. They can then receive special offers based on their shopping behavior, location and other personal data.

But the device, and others like it, may cause special alarm in places like Germany, industry observers say. One official at a German trade association said the trend “sounds like the NSA for shopping.”

Apple declined to comment on iBeacon, apart from product specifications.

Up to 55% of German customers have smartphones with an active wireless connection, according to tests conducted in some leading German retail stores, said Christian Eggert, co-founder of the German analytics start-up Minodes.

But Germans aren’t biting into Apple’s iBeacon just yet.

“There is not a significant number of users,” says Johannes Hofmann of Blue Cell networks GmbH, a company that makes tracking technology for retail stores.